Addressing Disproportionality in Child Welfare and Juvenile Justice, Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, I talked about the need to have the child welfare and juvenile justice systems work together to more effectively reduce racial and ethnic disproportionality. I listed the five elements, or areas of practice and policy, that these two systems should address jointly to improve their results.
 
Today, I want to flesh out what it would take to make these elements a reality:

1. Increasing Transparency

If done right, agency staff would modify their data systems to track kids known to both systems of care. The purpose would be to identify the full extent of the disproportionate representation of minority children and youth in these two systems, as well as those known to both systems, and make that information public to an oversight body charged with monitoring not just the extent of the disproportionality, but the success or failure in reducing it.
The data should also be used as a management tool by the two agencies so they can monitor their own progress, day-to-day and month-to-month. The data should be used to create greater accountability than now exists. It could also be used to better track how the disproportionality in each system might be contributing to the disproportionality in the other. 
 

2. Re-engineering Structures and Procedures

Once both systems have a common approach to reviewing key decision points in their respective systems, they have the opportunity to analyze how and if disparate treatment occurs at each point. If disproportionality is being exacerbated at a specific decision point, the data can be disaggregated to see if there’s something that can be changed to address the problem.
For example, if a jurisdiction finds that children and youth of color in the child welfare system are removed more often from their homes than kids not of color, they would need to explore why that is happening. If it is because the system is unable to find suitable family members who could take custody and care for the child or youth, this might require a change in how the search for family members is conducted, perhaps utilizing “family finding” technology. This same technology might also help to provide alternative placements in the juvenile justice system to reduce the number of youth detained after their arrest. The two systems in this instance have the opportunity to address a decision point that contributes to disproportionality and through their coordinated efforts use their limited resources more efficiently and effectively.
 
Alternatively, it might be discovered that a problem in one system is contributing to disproportionality in the other. For example, if youth of color in the child welfare system are being placed in group homes and disproportionately being referred into the juvenile justice system, a coordinated effort can be made between the two systems to achieve better results. This might include improving training and support for group home staff that will reduce these referrals and get better results in the child welfare system in terms of safety and well-being. It might also result in the reexamination of the use of group homes and other types of congregate care as opposed to kinship placements or foster family care.
 
 

3. Changing Organizational Culture

For agencies to be successful in addressing disproportionality, they need to be serious about providing training on the lack of equity in the two systems that this disproportionality reflects. In this regard, there needs to be a change in organizational culture across both child welfare and juvenile justice. In Texas, for example, both systems were jointly trained on “Undoing Racism” and are trying to address the disparate treatment that leads to disproportionality in a more comprehensive and coherent manner.
 

4. Mobilizing Political Leadership

Leaders need to take a holistic approach to addressing the problem. In other words, they shouldn’t convene a conference on disproportionality in juvenile justice without talking about the same issue in child welfare, or the underrepresentation of kids of color in mental health and substance abuse treatment services. Furthermore, it’s important not to raise the issue as the “issue of the month,” but to do so on an ongoing basis throughout one’s leadership tenure. Disparate treatment and disproportionality are issues that require sustained and intensive focus. While much can be achieved through the type of strategies mentioned above that are focused on both system and decision point analyses, leaders must also attack societal issues that contribute to disproportionality, such as poverty, disadvantaged communities and dysfunctional schools.
 

5. Partnering in Developing Family and Community Resources

This is the area in which there is perhaps the greatest opportunity for cross-system collaboration.Here are three ways the juvenile justice and child welfare systems can work together in this area:

• Develop, fund and implement family strengthening programs that can be used across the two systems, benefiting families within each system, as well as those known to both systems. This will help to create increased levels of cost and program efficiency and an enhanced resource for our most vulnerable families.

• “Family finder” software (mentioned in yesterday’s post [hyperlink]) has been used with success in child welfare to help locate the relatives with whom a child or youth can be placed (as opposed to putting him or her in foster care with non-relatives or in a group home). It could also be used in juvenile justice to create alternatives to detention; or develop enhanced supports and connections for youth as part of their aftercare plan as they reenter their community, school and home from institutional placement.

• The two systems should share responsibility for developing respite services for kinship, family foster care and group home providers who need relief from caring for children and youth who are acting out while in care. While these respite services have been used mostly in child welfare, they could be used in juvenile justice to avoid disrupting placements, violations of probation or the conditions of an alternative placement.

Caregivers in both systems need relief from the extraordinarily demanding role they play in helping to care for some of our most challenged and challenging children and youth. The two systems should work together to satisfy this need.
 
There is much more that can be said about each of these elements. My goal in these two posts, however, has not been to treat the issue in an exhaustive manner. Instead, it has been to draw attention to the possibilities for the child welfare and juvenile justice systems to work together in better serving our children and youth of color and reducing their disproportionate representation in these systems. In that regard, I hope these posts will spur conversation and debate in your jurisdiction and across your systems of care on how you might act on these ideas.
 
About the Author

Shay Bilchik is the founder and Director of the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute. The Center’s purpose is to focus the nation’s public agency leaders, across systems of care and levels of government, on the key components of a strong juvenile justice reform agenda.
 
Prior to joining the Institute, Mr. Bilchik was the President and CEO of the Child Welfare League of America for seven years. Before that, he headed up the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he advocated for and supported a balanced and multi-systems approach to attacking juvenile crime and addressing child victimization.